Blogs from Mae Hong Son, North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 8

From Chiang Mai I had two options for a next destination. I could go directly to Pai, of which I had heard lots of good stuff and was planning to spend a while in, or I could add an additional loop in the countryside to the schedule. I still didn't know which way I was heading when I arrived on the bus station. In the end something my colleague and friend Rachel had said about the best things being off the beaten track made me to choose the latter option (even if this wasn't exactly a non-beaten track, it was at least a much more seldom used one.) I also wanted to do some trekking and Mae Sariang, which was my first target, sounded ideal for that, as the big groups from Chiang Mai wouldn't find ... read more

Mae Hong Song is in the North of Thailand - not far from Burma. We had to come on a little plane through the mountains to get here. Because it is in the North it is further from the equator and less hot. (This is good because we all got too hot in Bangkok - looking at an enormous Reclining Budda. It was all gold and as big as a football pitch!) I liked Mae Hong Song better because there are mountains, teak forests, tribes and lots of adventures to be had. A bit like Tarzan wih clothes. One day we went on a long-tail boat down the river Pai. These boats are special to Thailand and called reua haang yao! The propeller is on the end of a long drive shaft that sticks out from ... read more

A couple days ago we went to Mae Hong Son where we rode elephants and got the pleasure of visiting the Karen hilltribe at their homes. They were very beautiful and friendly. The elephant ride was interesting, fun but a little nerve wracking, especially going up and down hills. When we got to Koh Lanta is was very cloudy and rainy. The beac h was nice, secluded but nothing spectacular, it kind of reminded us of Tofino. Don't get me wrong, Tofino is nice and all but we didn't fly 17 hours to go to a beach that looked like Tofino. The plus side was that it was very quiet and not a lot of tourists so we got to relax. We went to a spa and had an ice stone massage, it was very refreshing. ... read more

For the record, I wrote a lengthy bit of prose yesterday on a different computer in a different hole-in-the-wall and it was eaten by This Page Cannot Be Displayed monsters. Arg. Nonetheless ... I'll do my best to recreate what I can. My life as tourist has officially begun (despite the past two months of doggedly trying to prove otherwise); the word cliche might actually be patched on the back of my head by now -- one of those cute little iron on ones in the shape of Thailand -- who knows. Jason said there wasn't, but he might've just been trying to be polite. Walking, shivering, and blinking furiously to rouse my sleepy head, curled under the weight of our packs like a plastic spoon under fire, I trekked behind The Tallest Man In Thailand ... read more

This must be brief ... as we've mentioned before, TMITs have little tolerance for waiting. Yesterday we, oh so bravely, rented a mini-motorbike and took to the hills. Our itinerary included a fish cave, waterfalls and the nearby karen village. And so off we went into the misty morning (with our new friend Yaig yelling from behind his bar "Chok Dee Goose"), a little unsteadily, a little nippy, cameras in hand. The fish cave (now I wish I had taken a picture) was, quite literally, a whole in a rock looking down into a wee stream in which fish swam -- under the rock.. but the grounds were pretty nonetheless. The waterfall was a waterfall, but pretty and Thai. The village ... well, to begin with we're following these signs with little hand-drawn cartoons of longneck ... read more

Today we rode a real bus, and were joined by several other travellers as we headed for Mae Hong Son, a trekkers haven recommended to all by Lonely Planet and Rough Guide (among others I'm sure). It was a bumpy 4 hours ride, and we were mainly amongst the trees, but at times we had glimpse across endless mountains towards Myanmar, and down onto the sunny plains below. On arrival in Mae Hong Son we found it to be everything you'd expect of a place that is raved about by Lonely Planet: packed with people and travellers cafes. The first people we saw were grandparents out walking their grandchild - I'm sure it's parents were enjoying some time sans-baby to trek or down a beer on the lakeside (nice move). Eventually we found a room and ... read more